Daily Links May 31

Hey Matteo Canavani, climate change, and the very very many consequences including food shocks, is occurring whether you understand it or not. As a national leader, how about leading instead of bleating on about preferred energy sources?

Hope was high when the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted 2015. Countries pledged to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius. Five years later it is sobering: global emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-relevant gases continue to rise. In Science, Mark Lawrence and Stefan Schäfer of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) argue that the centralized approach to addressing global warming has failed and only greater democratic engagement can reanimate global climate politics.

In a landmark development, Australia’s principal energy rule-maker has paved the way for network operators to sever the network ties to remote customers, and deliver stand-alone power systems based around solar and batteries that will deliver big savings to all consumers.

Plans to transform land around City Hill with more than 1000 homes will have to clear an extra hurdle, with the federal government to scrutinise the clearing of a critically endangered species’ habitat.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) crews are on scene at multiple bushfires burning south of Bundaberg along Goodwood Road, near Elliot River.

Developers of a multi-rotor hovercraft, billed as the first flying vehicle to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells, unveiled a full-scale model in southern California. But the craft never left the ground.

Intensive radiotherapy can be toxic in 60 percent of patients with tumors located in the gastrointestinal cavity. Increases in levels of the protein URI protect mice against high-dose ionizing radiation-induced gastrointestinal syndrome and enhance mouse intestinal regeneration and survival in 100 percent of the cases.

A new device for collecting and purifying water was inspired by a rose and, while more engineered than enchanted, is a dramatic improvement on current methods. Each flower-like structure costs less than 2 cents and can produce more than half a gallon of water per hour per square meter.

Scientists have demonstrated that CO2 may make a better hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluid than water. New research could help pave the way for a more eco-friendly form of fracking that would double as a mechanism for storing captured atmospheric CO2.

The head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency says Russia’s nuclear activities would help improve weapons capabilities and says the country’s actions have “strained” key pillars of a network of international arms control agreements.

Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have designed a new, organic cathode material for lithium batteries. With sulfur at its core, the material is more energy-dense, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly than traditional cathode materials in lithium batteries.

A team of researchers including scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, published new findings that reveal significant damage to Miami’s coral reefs from the 16-month dredging operation at the Port of Miami that began in 2013. The study found that sediment buried between half to 90% of nearby reefs, resulting in widespread coral death.

As people fell trees to get wood for cooking, Mali’s trees are disappearing at rapid speed. A reforestation expert who has been dubbed ‘the forest maker’ is working with farmers to restore the country’s woodlands.